In recent years, conductive polymers apply in many fields extensively. Polyaniline became one of the most studied conductive polymers due to its good chemical stability and good conductivity. At the same time, polymers based on aniline derivatives attracted wide attentions from the chemical community. Poly(o-phenylenediamine) possesses high aromaticity and high thermal stability. Such kind of conductive polymer was used as the catalyst for electrochemical reduction of dioxygen as well as sensor for many chemical species. Poly(o-phenylenediamine) can be obtained by electrochemical polymerization of monomer o-phenylenediamine or by the chemical oxidative polymerization of monomer o-phenylenediamine.
Since the discovery of carbon nanotube, scientists focused their attention on molecular conductive wire. Conductive polymers possess long conjugation length and good conductivity. They have wide potential applications in the field of molecular conductive wire. Therefore preparation of conductive polymers having ID structure has not only important theoretical significance but also huge applied value. Zhang et al fabricated conductive polymer nanowire with soft lithography (2000 Nano Lett. 2:1373). Jang et al. prepared polypyrrole nanotube by using inverse micro-emulsion polymerization in non-polar solvent (2003 Chem. Commun. 720). Wan's research group prepared polyaniline and polypyrrole nanotube by using β-naphthalene sulfonic acid as dopant and surfactant (Wan et al., Chinese Patent No. 98109916.5; Wei et al., 2002 Langmuir, 18:917; Zhang et al., 2002 Macromolecules, 35:5937). Alternatively, many research groups used hard template technology such as using porous Al2O3 etc. as the template to form 1D structure of conductive polymer in the empty space of the template. However, the method has the following drawbacks: it is necessary to perform quite complicated post-synthesis process to remove the templates. At the same time, the 1D structures already obtained might easily be destroyed or be turned into aggregate in the course of their release from the hard template. For example, see following literatures: Martin et al., 1991 Adv. Mater., 3:457; Cai et al., 1989 J. Am. Chem. Soc., 111:4138; Martin et al., 1990 J. Am. Chem. Soc., 112:8976; Cai et al., 1991 Chem. Mater., 3:960; Wu et al., 1994 Chem. Mater. 6:1109; Wu et al., 1994 Science, 264:1757; Martin et al., 1993 Synth. Met., 55–57:1165; Parthasarathy et al., 1994 Nature, 369:298; Van Dyke et al., 1990 Langmuir, 6:1118; Penner et al., 1986 J. Electrochem. Soc., 133:2206; Cepak et al., 1999 Chem. Mater., 11:1363.